


So Cold Even My Hair Is Numb

by wordsaplenty



Series: VLD Whump Week [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 09:11:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11894580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsaplenty/pseuds/wordsaplenty
Summary: It was cold.  That was Keith’s first thought.  Why was it cold?  Where was he?  Why was it dark?  Last he remembered there was a fight? Right?  He had a job to do, he was supposed to help Lance.  Lance!AKA what happens when, one conscious and one unconscious, paladins are stuck in a dark lion with the temperature rapidly dropping.**Belated entry to VLD: Whump Week: Day 2 Hypothermia





	So Cold Even My Hair Is Numb

The battle had been going well. At least they thought it had. That changed quickly. Lance took a bad hit to the head and just dropped. His helmet had been discarded earlier in the battle and without it he never stood a chance. Keith was the closest to him and made short work of the Galra blocking his path.

“Lance, you awake,” Keith called out when he finally broke through the enemy and made it to his side. Lance remained silent. Lance was never silent. 

With the Galra being held off by the other paladins, Keith dropped to his knees and gently rolled Lance onto his back. There was a long gash on his left temple. Blood had covered the left side of his face. His short brown hair was plastered to the side of his head due to the blood. The gash was, thankfully, shallow and his breathing seemed fine but Lance did not seem like he’d be waking up anytime soon.

“Get him outta here, Keith. We’ll hold them off for you,” Shiro yelled out as he took down yet another Galra. 

The base was supposed to be lightly manned yet instead it was heavily guarded with reinforcements continuing to pour in. Story of their lives, nothing ever turned out the way they thought it would.

Keith moved Lance so that he was over one shoulder. He spared one final look at his team; Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk could handle this, they could cover their retreat.

“Shiro, once we’re clear,” Keith started before being interrupted.

“Go Keith, we’ll follow once you two are in the air.” 

Shiro’s tone left no room for argument. First walking, then jogging, and finally taking off into a sprint Keith made his way back through the halls they had already cleared. 

“Allura, Coran, prepare a pod, I’m bringing Lance back with a head wound,” Keith said.

“Understood, we’ll be ready for you,” Allura responded.

After what seemed like forever, Keith made it out of the base and to Red.

Keith set Lance down as gently as possible, leaning him against Red. He quickly took his place at the controls. Taking off Keith called to his team, “We’re in the air and heading back to the castle.”

“Roger, we’re falling back now. We’ll meet you there,” replied Shiro.

Keith spared a glance towards Lance who was still just leaning against the wall of the Red Lion, right where he’d left him. He’s too still. He’s never this still, it’s not right.

The Red Lion broke through the atmosphere and made it into space, the castle could be seen ahead. Of course that’s when things had to go from bad to worse. A wormhole opened up and out came a Galra ship.

“Guys…”

“Paladins…”

“We have company.” Keith and Allura spoke at the same time.

Keith was gearing up to take on all that the ship would throw at them. He glanced back at Lance. Who still hadn’t moved. No, he had to get him back to the castle. 

As if he were reading his thoughts Shiro said, “We’ve got this Keith, get Lance back to the castle!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Taking evasive action he dodged the shots that were coming from practically every direction. The other paladins had finally made it to space and were moving their lions to engage the Galra. He was about halfway back to the castle when another wormhole opened up directly beside him. He swerved to avoid it when suddenly something hit the back of the Red Lion. Keith was forced forward, smashing his head into the consul in front of him. Everything was going dark around Keith, his vision was tunneling. In his last coherent moment he felt a second shot hit the Red Lion and could only watch as they were forced into the wormhole before everything went black.

***

It was cold. That was Keith’s first thought. Why was it cold? Where was he? Why was it dark? Last he remembered there was a fight? Right? He had a job to do, he was supposed to help Lance. Lance! 

Keith shot up, and quickly sat back down again. His head was spinning. He remembered now. They had been pushed through a wormhole. He couldn’t feel Red at all. Red had gone dark, literally. It was completely dark inside Red. Keith reached for his wrist and turned on the light in his armor. 

He looked around and found Lance, still so still, but now sprawled out in a different place than where Keith had left him. Slowly this time, since he was still feeling slightly light headed, Keith made his way over to Lance.

“Lance?”

Keith once again moved Lance onto this back. Holding his breath he checked Lance over. Be okay, please be okay. Lance was unconscious but still breathing and his head wound didn’t seem to be any worse. 

With sigh of relief Keith sat down beside Lance to take stock of their situation. Red was completely dark, meaning life support systems must be affected in some way. That would explain the cold. No life support means no climate control. And space is cold. So cold. 

Okay, so they had no way to control the temperature, they might have a limited amount of oxygen, and they had no way of contacting their team. On the bright side they still had gravity so that was something. But, they were stuck. Their only hope was that their team would be able to track them down in time.

Keith was good at many things, but sitting and waiting was not one of them. “Patience yields focus”.

First, contact the team.

“Shiro, can you hear me?”

No answer.

“Allura, Coran?”

Still no answer.

“Hunk, Pidge, anyone out there copy?”

Nothing, this wasn’t working. Looking down at Lance, who was still far too still and showed no signs of waking, Keith decided to see what supplies they had to work with. He luckily had the foresight to pack a survival bag filled with clothes, rations, and a medical kit, to keep in Red, just in case. 

First things first he needed to take care of Lance. Taking the clothes out of his survival bag, a couple jackets and a few shirts, he laid them out on top of Lance, using them as a sort of blanket. This helped to lesson some of the shivers that were coursing through Lance’s body but not by much. The temperature in the lion was rapidly decreasing and there was nothing they could do about it.

“There, you ready to wake up now you’re nice and warm?” Keith asked. No answer, Lance was still unconscious. 

Having done what he could to warm up Lance, Keith turned his attention to cleaning and covering his head wound. He had to keep stopping to rub his hands and arms in a sad attempt to warm them up. His shaking was getting worse and worse as the minutes wore on. Finally, he finished binding Lance’s head. With a sigh of relief Keith let himself settle down next to Lance. 

“Hh-how about nnow? Ready to wake uup?” Nothing.

Come on guys, we could really use some help right about now.

Despite the massive shivers that wracked his body Keith began to feel tired. Occasionally his eyes would fall shut. Each time he would jerk himself back up, slapping his numb legs as hard as he could with his freezing hands in an attempt to wake himself up.

Looking over at Lance, Keith saw that his shivers were getting worse, and that he was still unconscious.

That’s probably for the best, knowing Lance he wouldn’t stop talking and all Keith wanted to do was sleep. Also, if oxygen really was slowly running out then Keith thought it was better that someone who seemed to have no off switch was currently unable to talk.

Keith chuckled to himself imaging Lance with a giant on/off switch attached to his back that controlled his ability to speak.

Keith’s shivers were beginning to lesson which he was grateful for. Something nagged at the back of his mind telling him this was a bad sign but he chose to ignore that and focus on watching Lance.

Lance was shivering more than Keith was. Shivering and still far too quiet.

Maybe he didn’t like how quiet Lance was. It wasn’t right.

Keith reached out and gently poked Lance’s cheek. No reaction, just more shivers. Keith was no longer shivering but Lance didn’t seem like he’d ever stop. He poked him again, harder this time. He shouldn’t be so quiet. Wait, it was a good thing he was quiet, right? No, it was wrong, he needed to wake up and talk. This wasn’t right. He poked again. Lance’s head lolled to the side. Keith grunted in annoyance.

“Lance,” he whispered, poking his neck, hard. Nothing.

“Lance,” he tried to speak louder but his voice failed him. His body was numb. He couldn’t feel his legs. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold his arm up.

“Lance,” he said one final time. Unable to coordinate his movements his finger ended up in Lance’s mouth. He didn’t have the strength to pull it back out.

Lance continued to shiver. Or was he twitching, as in about to wake up twitching, not just shivering. Keith’s finger was still in Lance’s mouth. He felt as Lance began to regain consciousness. His tongue moved around, pushing Keith’s finger out, causing his arm to fall onto Lance’s lap. Lance’s eyes began to open.

***

“Ow” was Lance’s first thought. His second was holy quiznak it’s cold. Third he realized there was someone leaning against him, with their hand in his lap.

Looking over he saw Keith gazing up at him under hooded eyes.

“KKeith, ww…wwhy is ittt sooo cooold,” he stuttered out. Body still shivering.

Keith just looked at Lance. When had it become so hard to talk, or move, or talk, or think, or talk? 

“KKeith, bb…bbuddy?”

“S’okay Lance…. be here soon,” he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. His entire body was numb, even his hair was numb. That was weird, hair doesn’t have any feeling, it shouldn’t be numb.

Lance looked down in horror as Keith started to chuckle to himself, before his eyes fully closed and he slumped against his shoulder. With Keith slumped against him Lance realized that, though his own body was still shivering in spurts, Keith’s was completely still. His mind went back to something he had learned long ago. Something about hypothermia. 

Something about no shivers being a very, very bad sign.

“Kkeith, bb…bbuddy, you gotta stay awake, yyyou ssaid they’dd be here soon. Wwaake up!” Lance moved his arm around Keith shoulder, rubbing his arm up and down as fast as he could, trying to create heat and to bring circulation back to Keith’s arm. Keith didn’t move. He was still. Too still. 

Looking at himself Lance finally noticed the clothes piled on him. It wasn’t much, but it had been enough apparently to stave off hypothermia, leaving Keith to succumb first.

“Wwhy…Kkeith, bb…bbuddy you gotta wake up. I ddon’tt know wwhaat to dooo. Ii’mm not sssurre how wwee got here. Youu gotta stickk wwith mee!”

Keith was still. Too still.

“Sshirro. Hhunk. Ppiddge. Aallurra. Someone, aanyonne. Wwwhere are you guyss?” Lance whispered. His shivers were slowing down. That couldn’t be good. 

“Pplease,” he said, his eyes slipping closed. Just before slipping back into unconsciousness Lance thought he felt Red lurch, like the Red Lion had run into something, or been grabbed by something. Everything went dark before he could process what had happened.

***

He sucked in a deep breath and fell forward into a warm chest and strong arms.

“I got you Lance, you’re okay now,” Hunk said, rubbing up and down Lance’s arms with his big, warm hands.

“What?” Lance asked looking around. In front of him were the paladins. Shiro looked exhausted but gave a small smile when he caught Lance looking at him. Pidge ran over and joined Hunk in hugging Lance. Coran and Allura looked relieved.

“What happened?”

Shiro stepped forward. “You took a bad hit back on the planet, do you remember that?”

Lance nodded hesitantly, he kinda remembered something about a fight and a pain to his temple.

“Keith got you out of there. You two were practically back to the castle when a Galra ship came out of a wormhole. They apparently came up with a new trick. The Red Lion was knocked into a second wormhole. Long story short, Pidge found a way to track where the wormhole let you two out and we were able to go pick you up.”

That made sense but something was still wrong. Lance couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something was missing. Looking around again he realized there was no mullet in sight.

“Where’s Keith,” Lance asked, looking around to make sure the mullet head wasn’t just hiding behind someone else.

Shiro sighed and nodded his head toward a second pod. “He should be out soon. The frost bite and hypothermia hit him harder than you, but he should come out of the pod all healed up.”

Shaking out of Hunk and Pidge’s grasps Lance turned to glare at Keith in the pod.

“That quiznak gave me his extra clothes. I don’t know what happened or how we ended up like that… I was out for most of it, but I know that much. Why would he do that?” Lance asked, turning to face the group.

Shiro strode forward and placed his flesh hand comfortingly on Lance’s shoulder. “You’d have to ask him to know for sure but, knowing Keith, he felt you needed them more, simple as that.”

Looking back at Keith in the pod Lance said, “Quiznak we coulda shared.”

Shiro sighed but didn’t argue the point. Keith’s self-sacrificing ways weren’t new and even with a team that supported him they were going to have trouble getting through to him that it didn’t always have to be that way.

“Come on, let’s get you some food,” Hunk said, grabbing Lance by the arm and practically dragging him toward the door.

“Excuse me, you can’t just go around dragging people off against their will. Unhand me this instant! I demand to leave this room with dignity. Hunk!” 

Allura, Coran, and Pidge quickly followed suit. When Pidge got to the doorway they turned around and asked, “You coming Shiro?”

Without taking his eyes off Keith’s pod he shook his head saying, “Go on ahead Pidge, I’m gonna wait here for Keith. We’ll catch up with you all later.”  
Pidge accepted this and went on to follow the others.

Shiro continued to stare at Keith, resting in the pod. 

“What am I gonna do with you Keith?”

**Author's Note:**

> So I took some sci-fi liberties with this one...possibly did it wrong but hopefully it turned out fine. Abrupt ending? Maybe. I don't know I like to keep things kinda open.
> 
> Comments would be appreciated if that's your thing! (Note: I am very much a hypocrite because I'm terrible at commenting, I will try to do better)


End file.
